Actually, I was feeling uncomfortable on the way down as I was struggling
keeping up pace with Eric. Despite breathing 18/45, I felt that I was building
up C02 much faster than I could clear it, and that is why I slowed down. I
seriously contemplatred going back up, and leaving Eric alone as I knew that if
I carried on at this pace that I would have got myself in serious trouble. This
had got so bad that I was actually overbreathing my Scubapro Mk25/G600 rig. This
cleared up when I momentarily slowed down, and I was able to continue my descent
with no further issues. I went over this with George and he too feels that it
was likely to have been a CO2 hit despite the decreased viscosity of the gas we
were breathing.

You hinted about different conditions / rules for deep speafishing as opposed to
exploration dives. I truly believe that Eric had worked out and had contributed
more to this than ayone else I know. He was in fact testing a setup on his
speargun that was designed to minimise effort in deep spearfishing, and which
was brilliant in it's simplicity and evolutionary as a concept. Any unique
conditions to deep spearfishing should be an addition to DIR, not a perturbation
or variation.

I'm taking a couple of days off work as I am beginning to get flashbacks and am
becoming increasingly tearful.

Christos

Dan Volker
wrote:
Christos,

My condolences to you for the loss of your friend.
It sounds like you did everything you could--too bad Eric did not
regulate/reduce his speed to stay within eye contact with you. Also, I applaud
you for having the balls to do a proper DIR rescue as you did.

While CO2 buildup used to be an issue on a fast spearfishing drop to 200 feet on
pure air ( remembering the late 1980's when deep air was the norm) , it is
difficult to imagine this as the culprit
on a trimix dive--unless he was breathing his 50/50 bottle well beyond 70 feet
deep. When George Irvine, Bill Mee and I would do rapid drop spearfishing dives,
we would typically drop using bottom gas from the surface, since we would be
below 70 feet in a few seconds( and each of us are very fast descenders when we
need to be for the conditions..I doubt GUE even suggests this, due to the
hypoxia result if the diver does not descend as fast as this requires--and
because, generally speaking, rapid descents are less healthy than slower ones) .
I only bring this up because you and several on this list are part of a very
small fraternity of divers who spearfish AND have the skills to dive deep (
whereas most tech divers really don't spearfish)....as such, the issue of
hitting the water and beginning the drop is quite different than for "normal
tech diving". It would appear very easy to accidentally drop well below 70 feet
while still breathing 50/50, if you began setting up the bands
on your gun just after you hit the water. Even if Eric switched gas after
realizing he was too deep for the 50/50, it could still be too late.
Eric's death was a terrible tragedy, but if we can figure out what caused the
accident, we can prevent this happening to others. DIR has lots of rules and
procedures for exploration diving, but for deep dive spearfishing and deep
lobstering, little has been taught or published. This is an area that needs to
be contributed to.

Thank you all for all the kind comments.
Here is a brief synopsis of what happened:

Dive planned to 170-190 ft
, 30 mins BT on a backgas of 18/45 in PST 104's, 50
mins deco on 50 and 100%. Sand was 210 ft, but profile allowed for a
considerably shallower average depth. We had planned on dropping on the Lowrance
wreck, and my buddy being a keen spearfisherman had brought his gun. I did not.

Everything was fine on the boat, there were no signs or premonitions of anything
untoward on the surface and on most of the descent.
The current was in excess of 2 knots, and the water temperature was considerably
colder than usual for Pompano, about 66F. My buddy dropped faster than I did on
this occasion, and I was not able to maintain eye contact. I chose to not swim
as fast as him, as I could already feel some CO2 narcosis stepping in. The team
ahead of us for whatever reason had chosen to place a down-line, and I saw my
buddy take hold of it and descend on it. I can only presume that he would have
loaded the four bands of his speargun at this time based on previous
observations of his behaviour. It's not hard to imagine that the effort of this
at 70 ft or so, compounded with all the other factors would have driven his PCO2
to levels that were not compatible with life.

I had him in clear visual contact all the time, and when we caught up on the
bottom, he started seizing immediately. I could not extricate him from the wreck
at once as his manifold was caught up on part of the wreck, so I deflated his
wing, purged my 7 cft hose into his mouth as his rig was out in an attempt to
clear his oropharyngeal airway, and belted for the surface. Dive time then was
11 mins, we were at 150ft (I think the current took us north of the Lowrance as
I did not recognize the wreck... we were probably 300ft N on the "Renegade"). To
those with whom I have previously spoken, I apologise for calling the depth 170;
This was an estimate based on an assumption that we were on the Lowrance which I
believe we missed. Time to surface was 4 minutes, I had switched to 50% en
route, and the boat was right on top of us. Even on the ascent, I could see that
my buddy was Cyanosed, and that there was frothy material coming out of his
mouth. All the way up to the surface, he was
having a grand mal seizure, and this stopped at about 40ft. I chose not to wait
for his seizures to abait as he was already cyanotic, and I pressed on his belly
all the way up in a vain attempt to prevent a pneumothorax. On the surface,
there was a massive amount of frothy blood tinged sputum coming of his mouth and
nose, I cut him out of his harness, and he was hauled onto the boat. The police
were on site in less than 2 mins, I went on O2, and we were were back in dock in
less than three minutes. My girlfriend who is an ER doc noted that he had a gash
on his cheek, and that he was so cyanotic and mottled that there was no way that
this could have been a 4 minute rescue. She noted in particular that alot of
water was coming out of his airway during rescuscitation. This confirms to me
beyond any reasonable doubt that my buddy had passed out at about 70 -100ft due
to overexcertion and CO2 narcosis, as a result of the goal orientated approach
of his dream of nailing a black grouper on
the Lowrance. I believe that that he had inadvertently chosen to ignore the
warning signs that that his body was showing him. He most likely scraped his
head onto the wreck, drowned on the way down, and started seizing due to Hypoxia
/ Anoxia. I sincerely doubt that there was any CO or acetylene in his backgas as
the fill station we use is the best run in florida, and the proprietor is
extremely anal retentive and methodical.

I would like to thank the member of the other team for giving up on attempting
to drag my buddy towards the "upline", and from allowing me to head to the
surface when he realised that my ascent was too uncomfortable for him. I would
like to thank that team for continuing their dive as though nothing had
happened, and for not recovering my friend's speargun.

In particular I would like to commend Captain Conrad Nix for his decisive
action, my girlfiend for an exemplary rescusitation despite overwhelming odds,
and for the Sheriff for getting on site in record speed. In particular I would
like to thank the Dentist member of the other team who maintained mouth to
mouth rescusuitation despite my comments calling for an end to the code. I
declined to go to the chamber and signed out AMA as I was well clear on deco.

I would also like to thank Dean Marshall, Cody Gardner, Bob Sherwood and Andrew
Georgitsis for teaching me how to rescue an unconscious diver. I would in
particular like to mention Andrew Georgitsis and Tyler Moon for coaxing me into
becoming more emotionally cool, smooth, unflinching, and deliberate in my
actions. I would also like to thank all of the countless individuals, both
Professors, and Patients throughout my fifteen years of Postgraduate Medical
Training who taught me the value of life, the dignity of humanity, the art of
Medicine and for developing me as a person who functions best in conditions of
high stress.

Eric Seibel was one of my best friends, a brilliant man and an exceptionally
talented diver. He just celebrated his 5Oth birthday on Saturday and will always
be remembered for his humanity, quick wit and his kindness. Whilst he made some
decisions today which I would not have, I will not dwell upon these. He was well
loved by many people in South Florida and leaves behind a wife and family. This
is the only comment that I will post online in a public forum. There are no
learning experiences to be gained from this, and I would only hope that people
continue to take heed, and appreciate the limitations of their training and
physiology.

Over the next few days I will no doubt increasingly blame myself for "not doing
this", and "not doing that". I do this everytime I have a death in the OR, and
it always runs through the same cycle. There is nothing else that could have
done to have prevented this death besides not diving today. Through the years I
have learnt to dissociate myself emotionally from my work, and this is helping
enormously right now, although I don't expect it to last much longer as I work
through the stages of mourning for my friend.